My daughter and I logged on to Code.org's "Hour of Code" site tonight, and she's already made it through 8 lessons (using the Scratch interface to control an Angry Birds maze) and produced the following JavaScript:

Like this:

As a parent of an elementary-grade kid, I'm always on the lookout for ways to inspire kid-engineering: the mindset of building anything you can imagine. Here's four great ones I've come across recently:

Like this:

Began reading J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" tonight from the 75th Anniversary hard-cover addition (covered and illustrated as it was when read to me 35 years ago). So far, the idea of a baker's dozen of uninvited dwarves arriving for tea and cake with their personal appetites, instruments, and a smoke-ring blowing wizard has been met with captivation.

In all my years of story reading, from ancient Greek mythology to talking Dr. Seussian creatures, I've never heard such a wonderful, precious, time-travelling "What happens next, daddy?".

"What do you think happens next?" I asked. Someone fell asleep before the answer got too far from "they eat more cake; the dragon is at the end..."